h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Living in Texas, I've come to enjoy Shiner Bock. A while back, I ate at a local restaurant, nothing special. I had a couple of Shiners, and when the bill came, they charged me the higher price for "imported" beer. When I pointed out that not only is Shiner not from outside the US, it's not even from out of state, they just said, "Yeah, but its better." I couldn't argue with that.

Oh, come on now.. You can always argue with something, even if you know it to be true! The issue here wasn't whether the beer was better, it was whether you should be paying for an import.

I recently attended a bachelorette party at a comedy club. Nowhere did they have posted that they had a two drink minimum and after our first round of drinks, the waitress disappeared. We didn't see her again until after the show, when she brought us our bill. We glanced at it, surprised to see that we were each charged for the extra drink.

After a minor episode between the club manager and eight p****d off women wearing large latex "party favors", they relented and we weren't charged for the extra drinks.

Sometimes, it's just the principal of the thing...

Agreed. If the menu prices had been divided between "good" beer and "average" beer, I would have been happy. So, can I borrow one of those latex party favors? Uhhh ... no, never mind.

The sad thing is, the pub down the street serves my favorite Texas beer (and one of my top five draughts), but the barman can't make it pour. He claims the tap pressure needs fixing, but I think he might be a moron. The last three times I've been there I've been frustrated by his efforts, and forced to drink bottled beer. The bud flows fine, of course ('cause it's f****** close to water!). Just in case he reads this, the name of the pub is Sloan's in West Hollywood.

... just a little correction ... "F****** close to water" is generally a reference to Coors beer from Golden, Colorado. The intro is "Why is drinking Coors like making love in a canoe?"

I used to work for a large international engineering company, the Coors engineers visited us in Houston, Texas, USA. They visited the LARGE Budweiser brewery in Houston, at the end of the red carpet tour, the Coors boss asked the pretty beer sample server "Can you give me a Coors?" She turned around, poured a half glass of Bud and filled the rest of the glass with water. "That's as close as I can get." I nominate her for VP. (The Coors guys were rolling on the floor, in fairness.)

Living in Massachusetts, I have the same problem of "imported" classification as regards Samuel Adams beer.

The best drinking places avoid the problem. They don't say "imported" or "domestic", they say "microbrew" or... well, I never ask for that other stuff.

Coors might be the worst so called "good" beer around. My boss drinks that stuff warm. I think I would rather drink Keystone, and that's saying a lot.

Nope, that just means you're not pretentious about your beer. I feel the same way about Busch and Budweiser.

My latest fave is Ziegenbock, I think they said its made in Texas. Whatever, they sponsor free music concerts here in Houston with bands like Little Feat. I'll drink to that.